Coming Up for Air and Coming Home

I have started this post one million times in my mind over the past month, namely at 2 am with sleep just beyond reach. After many months of chaos, change, and transition, I am finally coming up for air.

If you had asked me in January of this year what I thought this year may (roughly) look like for our family, I could not have begun to get close. Not even a little. And I have been blown away. It has been crazy. Crazy gifts, crazy grief, crazy adventure, crazy God.

First of all, 6th grade last year was a beast. For me. Yes, I said me. If you’re a mama that’s experienced a dose of middle school, you understand. Or maybe you don’t. I, for one, was relieved for the last day. I think I slept for two weeks after 6th grade ended.

Early in June, as I was going about my well-planned-out summer, David casually mentioned a job opening in Oxford, Mississippi. A rush of anticipation…and reluctance. Could there really be an opportunity to go back to where we started, where I am from, and where my heart has always been? Yet the rush of deep fear and grief of leaving relationships and a good, settled, predictable life in Arkansas was real.

Over the course of just two, short, prayer-filled weeks, we learned that, indeed, we would be moving back to Mississippi, and that in order to enroll our children in public school we’d need a physical address in Oxford like the next day as soon possible. Thus began the mother of all networking sessions. Thankfully, in Mississippi, everybody knows somebody’s mother’s best friend’s college roommate’s neighbor…and through it, God in His sweet love for us, brought us to a fabulous rental house in a very short time frame on a street made for children…and mamas. He threw in a dear high school friend next door to sweeten the deal. Coincidence? I think not!

So lately…no door hangers or new recipes (don’t be fooled, I love me a cute door hanger and a good recipe, but both take a back seat to being a mama and wife, especially in extra hard seasons as a family). And oftentimes, our deepest life experiences are best kept private, yet I hope over the next few months to give you a glimpse into a mother’s heart as I’ve made the difficult transition with a husband, 3 kids, and a dog across state lines to a place called home.

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Comments

AMANDA! I’ve been thinking of you lately, wondering how things were going! Glad to hear you found a place and I’ll be praying things continue to go smoothly for you and your family! Can’t wait to hear more about it all!